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Step Up Savannah: More needs to be done in poverty fight

The head of Savannah’s poverty-reduction initiative Wednesday pledged to do more to fight the growing problem here.

“There’s no doubt we’re not doing enough,” Daniel Dodd-Ramirez, executive director of Step Up Savannah Inc., told a group at a strategic planning session meeting at the Hoskins Center on the Memorial University Medical Center campus. “We need to do more.”

The session, which brought together public and private collaborative members, was the final in a series of meetings to map out steps in poverty reduction the next three years.

Both Dodd and Michael Traynor, publisher of the Savannah Morning News/savannahnow.com and vice chair of Step Up, acknowledged that Savannah’s poverty numbers have edged up slightly during the economic downturn.

“Our goal is to reduce those,” Traynor said. “We have quarter of our community impacted by poverty.”

He acknowledged that poverty here has gone up three points, adding that not much has changed since 2000.

“Things have gotten worse,” Dodd said.

But, he said the three-point increase mirrors the national increase in poverty and is well below the six-point increase for Georgia.

The group has made progress, but Dodd said the evolving process will depend on commitments by the 106 partners. Those enlist Savannah’s business community in attempting to find solutions to combat generational poverty here.

“We’re asking for new commitments today.”

A wide range of programs already in place were discussed in a session addressing initiatives in areas including wealth building, policy, workforce development, capacity building and a new area of continuum of care.

That initiative looks to replace interventions to correct things that have gone wrong with addressing issues before that point, former Savannah mayor and Step Up board member Otis Johnson said.

It envisions a conception-to-grave approach in a “just and caring community,” he said.

Afterward, Johnson said his group wanted Step Up to do more.

“We’re creating an army and we need troops,” Johnson said. “And there is no basic training.”

Added Alethea Frazier Raynor, a board member who assisted Johnson in the contiuum-of-care discussion: “Collaboration is absolutely key.”